Eight Years: Joseph Kosuth in Ghent from 1990 to 1998

This page is part of our exhibition archive. The exhibition took place from 15-02-2024 to 20-04-2024

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Eight Years: Joseph Kosuth in Ghent from 1990 to 1998: a cross-reference exhibition of information on the presence of an American artist in a Belgian city: consisting of a spatial chronology into which are inserted texts, artworks, archival documents, and books, focused on the relationship between an international artist and a local art community, with mentions of the reciprocity between work, partnership, family and household, edited and curated by Gertjan Oskar and Wouter Davidts.

In 1990, American artist Joseph Kosuth, pioneer of conceptual art, settles in Belgium. After several artistic passages in the city in the 1970s and 1980s, he moves both his studio and household from the New York metropolis to manor house in the Maagdestraat in Ghent. Together with his wife, art historian and curator Cornelia Lauf, and later their two children, he continues to live there until 1998.

The exhibition Eight Years: Joseph Kosuth in Ghent (...) presents traces of Kosuth's presence and activities in Ghent before, during and after his stay in Ghent. Using an extensive selection of historical documents, photographs, press, publications, books, works of art and letters from both private and institutional archives, the exhibition sheds light on the forcefield between the international artworld and a specific locality on the one hand, and the private life and public work of an artist on the other. The exhibition shows that a contemporary art practice always develops in a complex network of international contacts and local players, but also always involves a social dynamic between artist and partner, family, colleagues and friends.

Eight Years: Joseph Kosuth in Ghent (...) is conceived at once as a chronological arrangement of the rich palette of sources that an art-historical investigation provides, as well as a spatial representation of the record of the diverse evidence it yields.

The exhibition results from the research conducted in the framework of a Bachelor and Master thesis in Art Science by Gertjan Oskar, under the supervision of Prof. Wouter Davidts. The research took place within the context of the research group KB45 (Art in Belgium since 1945) on domestic and foreign protagonists within the post-war field of contemporary art in Belgium. The exhibition was realized with the support of VANDENHOVE, Faculty of Arts & Philosophy (UGent) and KB45.

Parallel to the exhibition, Joseph Kosuth realized a billboard for 019 and Artlead in the Ghent Harbour.
Billboard Series #30 (05/10/2023 – 18/02/2024)
Joseph Kosuth, Misfortune | Happiness, 2023
https://artlead.net/project/billboard-series-30-joseph-kosuth

Curators: Gertjan Oskar & Wouter Davidts, KB45 (Kunst in België sinds 1945) research Group, UGent
Exhibition Architecture: Kris Coremans, SSA/XX
Graphic design: Pauline Scharmann